Payroll for Capitol Stone Cutters August 1795

"could not muster a force sufficient without putting an entire stop to the setting."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capitol, page 94. 

While there is no evidence that hired slaves did any of the skilled stone work on the Capitol and White House, we can get a sense of what the slaves were doing from payrolls of skilled stone workers because the hired laborers, mostly slaves, moved the stone.

Stonecutters were the key workers in the construction of any stone building so it is strange that in August 1795 only 7 were working at the Capitol:

Most likely some of the stonecutters were working on the Capitol walls as masons. Blagden wrote a note to the commissioners explaining that he delayed some stone cutting work because the laborers he would need to move the stone were working so well with the masons raising the walls.

This payroll like several others for May through August shows workers at the job for more working days than there are in the month. Blagden and Waterstone worked 30 days and August has 31 days. I interpret this as meaning that rather than working on Sundays, they were credited for working longer summer daylight hours. If they had worked on Sunday slaves who assisted them would be entitled to extra wages of at least a shilling a day.

Four of the stone cutters evidently got a raise during the month, from 11 shillings a day to 13. George Bladgen got twice the common was for stonecutters. In August he earned 41 Pounds 5 shillings or about $110. The highest salaried worker, James Hoban, earned $1500 a year and the commissioners $1600. Masters who hired out slaves got $60 to $72 a year. There is no evidence that slaves tending stonecutters and masons ever got extra wages they could keep themselves.